The quarter ended March 2026 brought a broadly positive conclusion to a significant year for India’s telecom sector. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel sustained strong revenue and profit growth through the quarter and across the full year, consolidating the gains from two years of tariff revision and 5G infrastructure investment. Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi) turned in a structurally important quarter, with monthly subscriber additions turning positive for the first time in years and a settlement of the long-running adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dispute materially reducing its debt burden. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) saw its ARPU improve sharply through the year, but a weak fourth quarter pushed its full-year loss to Rs 47.38 billion, more than double the loss recorded in FY 2024-25.
For Jio and Airtel, FY 2026 was a year defined by scale and diversification. Both operators have largely completed their 5G network builds and are now actively shifting focus to monetisation through fixed broadband, enterprise services, cloud and data centres. Jio added approximately 10 million fixed broadband subscribers in FY 2026, taking its market share to around 43 per cent, while Airtel crossed 650 million total customers globally during the fourth quarter (Q4). Vi’s profit was Rs 519.7 billion in Q4 FY 2026; however, this demands careful interpretation. The figure is almost entirely attributable to a one-time accounting gain of Rs 574.91 billion from the AGR settlement, arising after the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) revised Vi’s outstanding dues to Rs 640.46 billion from the Rs 876.95 billion figure frozen in December 2025. The existing liability was derecognised, and a revised present value liability of Rs 248.8 billion was recognised, with the difference credited to the profit and loss account. On a pre-exceptional basis, Vi’s loss before tax for the quarter remained approximately Rs 55 billion. Operationally, Vi remains loss-making, though the AGR resolution removes the most significant source of financial uncertainty the company has carried for years.
A look at the financial and operational results of India’s telecom operators for the quarter ended March 2026 and the full year FY 2026…
Reliance Jio
Jio posted revenue of Rs 449.28 billion in Q4 FY 2026, up 12.7 per cent year on year. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew 17.9 per cent to Rs 200.6 billion, with the margin expanding 230 basis points to 52.4 per cent. Profit after tax was Rs 79.35 billion, up 13 per cent from Rs 70.22 billion in Q4 FY 2025. For the full year FY 2026, Jio’s revenue rose 14.7 per cent to Rs 1,723.17 billion, and EBITDA grew 18.8 per cent to Rs 762.55 billion, with margins expanding 190 basis points. Full-year profit after tax was Rs 300.53 billion.
ARPU for Q4 FY 2026 stood at Rs 214, up from Rs 206.2 in Q4 FY 2025, driven by a better subscriber mix. The total subscriber base reached 524.4 million, with net additions of 9.1 million during the quarter and monthly churn stable at 1.7 per cent. Total data traffic grew 35 per cent year on year to 66 Exabytes in Q4, with per capita consumption at 42.3 GB per month. The 5G subscriber base reached 268 million as of March 2026, accounting for approximately 55 per cent of total wireless traffic.
On fixed broadband, Jio’s total base reached 27.1 million. JioAirFiber crossed approximately 13 million subscribers, having already crossed the 10 million mark in Q3. Jio also upgraded its fixed broadband offering by transitioning to non-line-of-sight hardware, expected to widen the addressable market and improve deployment efficiency. Looking ahead, Reliance Industries chairman confirmed that the group is advancing steadily towards the listing of Jio Platforms, which is expected to be one of India’s largest-ever public offerings.
Bharti Airtel
Airtel reported consolidated revenues of Rs 553.83 billion in Q4 FY 2026, up 15.7 per cent year on year and 2.6 per cent quarter on quarter. Consolidated EBITDA was Rs 320.38 billion, up 16.9 per cent year on year, with a margin of 57.8 per cent. Net income before exceptional items was Rs 72.45 billion, up 38.7 per cent from Rs 52.23 billion in Q4 FY 2025. Capex for the quarter stood at Rs 160.66 billion. For the full year FY 2026, consolidated revenues grew 22 per cent to Rs 2,109.73 billion, EBITDA reached Rs 1,212.68 billion at a margin of 57.5 per cent, and net income before exceptional items was Rs 269.04 billion. The consolidated net-debt-to-EBITDA ratio improved to 1.29 times from 1.86 times a year ago, with India and passive infrastructure services reaching a net-debt-negative position on an ex-government-dues basis.
India revenues came in at Rs 395.66 billion for Q4, up 7.7 per cent year on year. India EBITDA was Rs 239.65 billion at a margin of 60.6 per cent, and full-year India EBITDA reached Rs 931.97 billion at a margin of 60.1 per cent. Meanwhile, the telco’s mobile ARPU remained the highest in the industry at Rs 257, up from Rs 245 in Q4 FY 2025. Airtel added 5.8 million smartphone data customers in Q4, with this segment now accounting for 80 per cent of the total mobile base. Post-paid net additions were 0.8 million, taking the base to 29 million. Mobile data consumption also grew 32.8 per cent year on year to 31.4 GB per customer per month.
On the strategic front, Nxtra Data, Airtel’s data centre subsidiary, secured a commitment of $1 billion from Alpha Wave Global, Carlyle and Anchorage Capital, as it plans to expand data centre capacity towards a target of 1 GW. Airtel also announced plans to capitalise its non-banking financial company subsidiary, Airtel Money Limited, with Rs 200 billion over the next few years, reflecting its ambition to expand digital financial services. The telco’s collaborations with Google on rich communication services messaging and with Zscaler on an artificial intelligence (AI) and cyber threat research centre further deepen the enterprise portfolio.
Vodafone Idea Limited
Vi reported revenue of Rs 113.32 billion in Q4 FY 2026, up 2.9 per cent year on year. EBITDA was Rs 48.89 billion, up 4.9 per cent year on year, with a margin of 43.1 per cent. Cash EBITDA, excluding the IndAS 116 lease accounting impact, was Rs 24.32 billion at a margin of 21.5 per cent. For the full year FY 2026, revenues were Rs 448.73 billion, up 3 per cent, and EBITDA was recorded at Rs 190.03 billion, up 4.8 per cent. However, as noted, Vi remains operationally loss-making, with a pre-exceptional loss before tax of approximately Rs 55 billion in Q4.
Despite this, Q4 produced genuine signs of stabilisation. Customer ARPU (excluding machine-to-machine) rose to Rs 190 from Rs 175 in Q4 FY 2025, an 8.3 per cent increase, which Vi described as the highest ARPU growth rate in the industry. Monthly subscriber additions turned positive since February 2026, ending a prolonged run of net losses. With this, the total subscriber base stood at 192.8 million at quarter end, and the combined 4G and 5G subscriber base reached 128.9 million. Post-paid subscribers have registered consecutive net additions for eight quarters, reaching 30.1 million. In terms of 5G, the coverage expanded to 83 cities across all 17 priority circles.
Meanwhile, the bank debt fell to Rs 7.26 billion from Rs 23.26 billion a year ago, and cash and bank balances stood at Rs 37.15 billion.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
BSNL’s Q4 FY 2026 was a setback following the relative progress seen earlier in the year. Revenue from operations declined approximately 14 per cent year on year to Rs 57.21 billion, and the net loss for Q4 was Rs 12.69 billion, compared to a net profit of Rs 2.8 billion in Q4 FY 2025, driven by higher network operating expenses, employee costs, finance charges and depreciation. For the full year FY 2026, revenue from operations grew just 1.7 per cent to Rs 211.99 billion, falling approximately Rs 73 billion short of the Rs 284.76 billion target under the company’s MoU with DoT. The full-year net loss widened to Rs 47.38 billion from Rs 22.47 billion in FY 2025. The primary driver is a sharp rise in depreciation from newly capitalised 4G assets.
On the positive side, full-year ARPU improved to Rs 101 from Rs 71 in FY 2025, a 42 per cent increase, reflecting the impact of 4G subscriber additions. The enterprise business segment posted 15 per cent revenue growth for FY 2026. However, the cellular business, which accounts for roughly 26 per cent of BSNL’s revenue, grew just 1 per cent in FY 2026, with revenue rising to Rs 55.71 billion. The gap between operational improvement and financial sustainability remains the central challenge for the state-owned telco.
In sum
The FY 2026 results illustrate a sector moving in broadly the right direction, but at very different speeds across operators. Jio and Airtel have converted years of network investment into stronger margins and expanding digital businesses, and with capex intensity tapering, free cash flow generation should improve even further in FY 2027. Jio Platform’s listing on the stock exchange, when it arrives, will be the sector’s defining event. Vi’s AGR resolution and subscriber base stabilisation are meaningful steps, but a genuine commercial recovery requires sustained network investment and further capital raising. For BSNL, ARPU and EBITDA improvement are encouraging, but revenue growth at scale remains elusive.
The call for further tariff repair remains the most consequential policy variable for the sector’s trajectory in the year ahead. After that, how quickly that repair materialises, and at what scale, will shape not just the financial trajectories of individual operators, but the pace at which India builds the digital infrastructure its next decade of growth demands.
Shashwat Singh
